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Wikipedia blocked in Turkey

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Re: Wikipedia blocked in Turkey

#261

Post by namlem »

beloch wrote: post #31

I'm a canuck who has worked with Turks and has visited Turkey. They're a wonderful people from a beautiful country with a real problem of a person in power. Turkey is almost entirely Muslim, yet they produce alcohol and tolerate its consumption within their borders, even by their own people. Let that fact sink in for a moment. Erdogan is subverting the premier secular democracy of the Islamic world, but nobody seems…

I don't think it's that no one cares, it's that he is very difficult to stand up to. The EU needs him because Turkey is the only thing holding back a flood of 2 million refugees. They can't threaten sanctions without risking the floodgates being opened. The US has had a long relationship with Turkey and doesn't want to terminate it unless it has to. Turkey also has the second largest standing army in NATO and is a regional rival of Russia, which is convenient for us.

Re: Wikipedia blocked in Turkey

#262

Post by namlem »

slowmotiony wrote: post #260
beloch wrote: post #31

I'm a canuck who has worked with Turks and has visited Turkey. They're a wonderful people from a beautiful country with a real problem of a person in power. Turkey is almost entirely Muslim, yet they produce alcohol and tolerate its consumption within their borders, even by their own people. Let that fact sink in for a moment. Erdogan is subverting the premier secular democracy of the Islamic world, but nobody seems…

You do realize they voted him in? They specifically chose him to be his leader and continue to do so. Why should the West "wake up"? What do you propose the west does? Should we send the militaty and overthrow him?

In a referendum with tons of irregularities and many reports of government thugs intimidating voters.

Re: Wikipedia blocked in Turkey

#263

Post by slowmotiony »

isostatic wrote: post #210
ivanbakel wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that there's no problem at all. The standard for many Islamic countries to introduce parts of Islamic law as state law, such as the forbidding of alcohol or the veiling of women. By contrast, Turkey is much more secular in its government.

People who haven't travelled read Islamic and think Saudi Arabia. Go to Indonesia and you'll find cheap beer and the only reason women wouldn't drive is the traffic is really bad.

What is the legal punishment for leaving or insulting islam in Indonesia?

Re: Wikipedia blocked in Turkey

#264

Post by yawz »

mino wrote: post #165
sorenjan wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real people rarely want war, they all want the same basic things: food and shelter, a good future for their kids, and to live in peace. This is universal over the whole world, unless they've had their minds poisoned by leaders with their own agendas, be it political or religious. However, most people also don't really care that much about other people, especially in other countries. So they elect people to handle tha…

> More than 63% voted yes in Germany for instance. I also was baffled about the results of the Turkish vote abroad. How is it possible that, in many EU states, they won which such a majority? I would have expected expats to be generally more liberal/globalist/progressive.

> I would have expected expats to be generally more liberal/globalist/progressive.

I'm not sure "expat" is the right term to designate the masses who responded to West Europe's call for more labor in the 70s. In the sense that they live outside of their native land, yes, they are expatriates. But, today, the term almost designates a wealthier group who are sent by their companies to work abroad now.

In any case, there's a big difference between the Turks in Europe (more than 60% of them voted for Erdogan) or, say, Turks who live in the US (only 15% of them voted for Erdogan). Their backgrounds are completely different. Most of the people who immigrated to Europe to satisfy the new labor needs came from rural areas, mostly from the central and eastern part of Turkey without even living in a sizable city in Turkey. That created a complete culture shock and great integration problems.

Turks in the US, on the other hand, came here mostly for college/university. They are highly educated and they've fully embraced the values of the nation because they had those values at heart even before they decided to live or study abroad.

Re: Wikipedia blocked in Turkey

#265

Post by user5994461 »

cryptarch wrote: post #175
czep wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more like not wanting rent-seekers, whose property was given to them at birth, to be entitled to other people's labor. All property is theft, because in the grand scheme of things, we are all renters. We are here on borrowed time, why do we make a system in which some have more rights than others?

Do you have ideas on how to fix that? I recently heard "land-ownership tax/renting land from the state instead of owning it" and "100% tax on death/abolish inheritance", I think they're interesting but not without problems.

It's really easy to fix.

The process is called war. Properties are not valuable when tenants and landlords keep dying and the properties themselves might get destroyed.

Re: Wikipedia blocked in Turkey

#266

Post by r3bl »

azangru wrote: post #65
agsamek wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great summary. One missing thing is that goverments are getting better at using free Internet for propaganda. In Poland we have open Internet so far, but we are increasingly exposed to Russian goverment news/comments that are factually wrong but repeated consistently. Basically - we see the same thing we already saw with free market. It is not free by itself. Countries and companies can use it to establish monopolies…

Being a Russian, I am naturally very curious about this idea of the Russian propaganda getting a stronger and stronger influence over the minds of people in other countries. Could you kindly elaborate on the following issues that mystify me: - Where do people get the Russian news and why do they care about what Russia has to say? I mean, I don't follow Polish news (or French news, or German news, etc.); so why would…

Not from Poland and not in an any way affected country, but I believe I can answer your first question, and it comes down to basically Rossiya Segodnya.

Here's an investigation that discovered them operating in the Baltics: https://en.rebaltica.lv/2017/04/sputniks-unknown-brother/

Long story short, they open a news portal where tracking the ownership is almost impossible and where there is absolutely no hindsight on how do they monetize what they do, they attract readers by appealing to the Russian minorities, trying to create some sort of panic between them and hoping to create a chain reaction.

Re: Wikipedia blocked in Turkey

#267

Post by pbhjpbhj »

_Adam wrote: post #73
hd4 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be implying that because they're Muslim but not really Islamic and very western that it's somehow not desirable for them to become more Islamic. How about you let them decide what's good for themselves? Why is it scary just because it's Islamic? I detect racist undertones in your post. And I don't think much of Erdogan at all, and how he thinks censorship is cool. But you don't get to start deciding what'…

Well, for starters they didn't decide for themselves. It was decided for them: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/world/europe/turkey-refer... The greater issue though, is that it seems the "majority" is now imposing their religious ideals on a "minority". That is an unacceptable violation of the basic right to religious freedom. Sadly Turkey is far from the first country in the Middle East to do this. There's a guy…

>The greater issue though, is that it seems the "majority" is now imposing their religious ideals on a "minority". That is an unacceptable violation of the basic right to religious freedom. //

But that violent subjugation of non-Muslims is a central part of Islam (as practiced and preached by Mohammed). Become a Muslim, if you're "people of the book" pay jizra, or die. That's the only way for an Islamic majority to stay true to Mohammed's injunctions.

Unless Islam turns is back on Mohammed and the Koran it can't become accepting of our Western concept of human rights in this way.

Muslims whom I know are thankfully just not practicing this party of their religion and not emulating Mohammed in this way; but suggestion they are not being true to Mohammed and his ideals would nonetheless be a massive affront to them. I see no way to fit Mohammedism in to a peaceful world.

Re: Wikipedia blocked in Turkey

#268

Post by treehau5 »

beloch wrote: post #31

I'm a canuck who has worked with Turks and has visited Turkey. They're a wonderful people from a beautiful country with a real problem of a person in power. Turkey is almost entirely Muslim, yet they produce alcohol and tolerate its consumption within their borders, even by their own people. Let that fact sink in for a moment. Erdogan is subverting the premier secular democracy of the Islamic world, but nobody seems…

I'm a greek who's grandmother has a view of Turkey within their back yard.

I'd say the majority of your view is true, but in my guess-timation, about half of them are fundamentalists, who still treat Kurds like third-class citizens, who want to turn Hagia Sophia, a cultural epicenter and museum back into a Mosque, who helped vote Ergodan in in the first place. The people you are talking about never wanted him.

A funny parallel, if you read HN, you could draw the same conclusion about America -- it sounds like most everyone is against Trump and are reasonable people, but 48.5% of the country still voted him in, and of that 48.5% half think he's doing a 'wonderful job'

These people don't stay in power by chance. America -- take note.

Re: Wikipedia blocked in Turkey

#269

Post by Treegarden »

azangru wrote: post #65
agsamek wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great summary. One missing thing is that goverments are getting better at using free Internet for propaganda. In Poland we have open Internet so far, but we are increasingly exposed to Russian goverment news/comments that are factually wrong but repeated consistently. Basically - we see the same thing we already saw with free market. It is not free by itself. Countries and companies can use it to establish monopolies…

Being a Russian, I am naturally very curious about this idea of the Russian propaganda getting a stronger and stronger influence over the minds of people in other countries. Could you kindly elaborate on the following issues that mystify me: - Where do people get the Russian news and why do they care about what Russia has to say? I mean, I don't follow Polish news (or French news, or German news, etc.); so why would…

I am from Germany so I don't know about your first question.

For your second question: I myself don't know too much about this in regards to the internet, but I have read in a couple of white papers that

1: a large majority of Russians (esp. those in rural areas) have TV as their main source of news. Print is only a minority (has small relevance).

2: Most TV is controlled by the government and if they are not they don't criticize the government as there is a fear of being shut down.

3: The Russian media is said to state false Fact as well as to distort Facts/Events. I don't have the time to link specific sources but you can find what I said if you research freedom of press on google and google scholar. There are also renown sites with lists such as a freedom of speech index. Russia ranks 148.

https://rsf.org/en/ranking

https://scholar.google.de/scholar?hl=en&q=russia+freedom+of+...

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14616690320001763... http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1081180011291722...

Re: Wikipedia blocked in Turkey

#270

Post by nebabyte »

mjburgess wrote: post #169
nebabyte wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not a fucking monarchy. The entirety of the executive branch serves at the pleasure of the president. And he's entirely within his rights to shut programs down; that isn't censorship. Learn your definitions lest you serve as a strawman for the other side of the argument.

The president censored the staff of the EPA, that's true whichever picture you take.

Incorrect, if you define of 'censorship' as the illegal suppression of information, as I and others do.

Any structural changes (including withholding information - or will you no longer complacently consent to living under a system wherein secret classifications exist?) are entirely legal, and so not 'censorship'.

I'm not saying I agree with the idea, but the system you're in does not magically adapt to suit your ideals in any given system. If you're not going to understand it well enough to understand where it needs to change, you're just going to be a waste of time for anyone wishing to discuss means to do so, and so not worth engaging for those people.

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